Treasure trickling down from heaven

LAST year Éric Vuillard’s book The War of the Poor was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. It was regarded by the judges as a “dazzling piece of historical reimagining” and “a furious denunciation of inequality”.

However, some critics grumbled about value for money since the book struggled to make 80 pages (just over an hour’s read) and seemed more of a romp through the Peasants’ Revolt than a serious reflection. Yet most praised its righteous anger and incendiary prose as Vuillard tells the story of a brutal episode from the history of inequality.

As the Protestant Reformation took on the rich, powerful and privileged, the peasants wondered why they had to wait until they were in heaven for equity.

On to the scene, cassock flying, elbows the controversial German preacher and religious reformer Thomas Müntzer, who has the audacity to talk directly to the poor, bypasses the conservative Martin Luther and calls for the end of the oppression of the poor by the Protestant nobles and landlords.

His violent end was predictable in a rotten system which favoured the rich and upper classes. Sense of déjà vu?

The book has a resonance in the current world of Trussifarianism, a fairyland fantasy of treasure trickling down from heaven whereby rewarding the rich with tax cuts somehow magically eventually benefits the poor.

Normally sanguine politician Drakeford of Wales was almost as fierce as radical theologian Müntzer of Germany when he described the Truss fiscal event as “voodoo economics from a zombie government”. Starmer of England called it “unfair and economically illiterate”. Hood of Nottingham said: “Er... wrong way round.”

At the time of writing, such economical illiteracy seems to have spooked everyone. What is known in the US as “starving the beast”, a small state and public spending cuts, can only perpetuate Vuillard’s seemingly endless war of the poor.

He had shown that the struggle is always about money, influence, power and protecting the rich; he had also described Müntzer as a “messianic crackpot” – after all his most terrifying idea was that he preached the equality of all human beings.

How mad is that.